Q & A with Bernie – March 23, 2015

Posted onMarch 23, 2015byBernie Siegel

Question for Bernie

I grew up in a religious family, and I have been active in my church for 20 years. I am very scientific and pragmatic. Faith is difficult. I admire it in others! I see others flex a spiritual muscle, to me is like a 6th sense. I have a hard time feeling a spiritual connection.

How do you connect with God, The Universe, Deity? How do you become a spiritual person?

Bernie’s Answer

Life is a miracle. When I think of God, to me the word god represents intelligent, loving, conscious energy. Bodies come and go, but our consciousness is immortal.

It is not about religion with rules and regulations for spiritual experiences. It is simply about faith and love. God built the potential to heal in all things.

Peace,
Bernie

Question for Bernie

I was diagnosed with uterine cancer and heart disease within three weeks of one another. I had a stent put in Friday. The hysterectomy with sentinel lymph node mapping will be in about 35 days.

I am 67 years old and am on medication for the first time. How do I prepare for surgery?
Bernie’s Answer

My CD, Getting Ready: Preparing for Surgery, will help. It prepares people for surgery, as well as for chemotherapy and radiation. Order it on my website:

Always remember that your body believes what your mind pictures and creates. So, several times a day, sit or lie down and take a deep breath to clear your mind and body. Now, visualize this experience

~ going to the hospital easily
~ having successful surgery
~ recovering rapidly with no side effects
~ completely healed and feeling better than ever!

After you have “100 successful procedures” via faithful visualization, your body now expects that of the real one, too. Love your body for being so wonderfully cooperative.

To be fair, I have known people who can’t overcome their conditioning to see surgery as the worst thing. These patients also tend to have all the possible complications that the doctor mentions.

To avoid giving your mind fodder for a very negative visualization, ask your doctor to speak carefully, giving you only positive messages, and also ask him to play music in the O.R.

Peace,
Bernie

Question for Bernie

My mom died of cancer after five years of fighting while my dad held her hand. Now, 18 years later, at the age of 83, he has just been diagnosed. I want to offer all you have to share to him as he is 83 years young. He was just swimming laps and dancing in October of 2014.

He is angry right now and when positive/alternative additions are mentioned, he replies it did nothing for your mom. Trying to share all I know to be true after researching while my mom was sick, and later again when I struggled with my own auto-immune disease, which I feel I helped myself bring to remission.

Any help you can offer in aiding my delivery would be greatly appreciated. He wants to dance at 90…I feel the need to show him he can. I thank you for your book being available 18 years ago…and your blog being available now.

Bernie’s Answer

Use the anger for its energy, but redirect that energy to your father becoming a “love warrior.” Being a love warrior is not about war and battle and killing—it is using the negative energy to a positive purpose of filling his life with all the ways he can show his love for life. Loving his life just as it is now, equally with loving his body for giving him such a great life so far, will give his body the message to LIVE and it will eliminate the cancer.

Listen to him—practice “active listening” which just means keeping eye contact and leaning forward showing that you are not distracted—you are listening to what he says closely. This is a great gift you can give him—letting him get it all out; hearing his own words himself, he can really come to know who he is.

Get him my book and see how he responds. Remember, it is his life and you have to let him do what feels right for him. What he doesn’t believe in is not likely to do him any good and have many side effects, so don’t force anything he is against trying.
Ask him what he is feeling and experiencing. Take note of the words he uses to describe both his physical and emotional discomfort. See if there are any people or situations in his life who could be described with some of the same words, and work on helping him eliminate them from his life if possible.

Drawings can help with decisions, too, so see if that might interest him.

Peace,
Bernie

Question for Bernie

I live in Boston and am a patient at one of our premier medical facilities. I consider myself an “Exceptional Cancer Patient.” I have read your new book and have practiced many of your suggestions through my treatment, as well as other visualizations and meditations. I am currently reading “You are the Placebo” by Dr. Joe Dispenza.

I am writing to ask you if it would be possible to meet with you for a consultation about my case.

To give you some background, I was diagnosed in June 2014 with breast cancer in the left breast with lymph node involvement. ER/PR positive Her2 negative. I have already gone through very intense treatment. Now I have another decision to make regarding treatment.

I feel I need to talk this through with someone who understands my reluctance to put more chemicals into my body. I am 50 years old. I have been a vegetarian since I was 22, only organic food, and have been extremely conscious of my health and what eat and the products I use. I also practice a spiritual path and have a regular meditation practice.

I am weighing the cost/benefit of this decision and would greatly appreciate an opportunity to discuss this with you. I feel like you would give me a unique and holistic perspective that I can’t seem to find anywhere else and that I deeply desire.

I thank you for taking the time to read this email and greatly look forward to your response.

Bernie’s Answer

Get a box of crayons with all colors available. Draw yourself receiving the trial medication Palbociclib and either put it in an email so I can see it, or mail it to me and then we will talk about your decision.

My wife had early stage breast cancer, and I had no problem stopping therapy when it affected her life in a negative way. It wasn’t about “not dying,” but about enjoying your life. She also lives with MS disabilities.

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We have a cancer support group that meets the second and fourth Tuesday afternoons of the month at Coachman’s Square, 21 Bradley Road, Woodbridge. If interested contact: Lucille Ranciato lranciato@yahoo.com 203-288-2839; or myself bugsyssiegel@sbcglobal.net for details.

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